News & Perspectives on Beer and its Culture

Beer Release

The Unknown Brewing Company (Charlotte, North Carolina) has announced that it will hold a special taproom release for Rarest Bean, an Imperial Stout brewed with two of the rarest beans in the world, at 3 p.m. on Friday, February 16.

To ensure that Rarest Bean lives up to its name, The Unknown Brewing Company brewed this “Imperial Pastry Sweet Stout” with a recipe that boasts not one but two highly coveted beans. The first of the beans is Black Ivory Coffee, “literally the rarest coffee bean on earth.” With only about 1,000 pounds produced each year, this rare and pricey coffee ($100 a bag) is consumed and “processed” by elephants. Yeah, that means what you think it means.

The overachievers at The Unknown then took things a step further by adding Tongan vanilla beans to this rare bean roster. Although these beans were never inside an elephant, they do create “an extremely rich vanilla flavor.” That’s a good thing because these magic beans come in a package that “only contains 2 beans and is around $30-$40 per container.” Do you see the trend here? The Rarest Bean’s ingredients are special, rare and exclusive, and that makes Rarest Bean special, rare and exclusive.

Rarest Bean will be available exclusively in the taproom at The Unknown Brewing Company at 3 p.m. on Friday, February 16. Due to the rarity of the ingredients and the exorbitant cost of brewing this beer, the brewery has only produced 100 bottles of Rarest Bean and bottle limits will be set at two (2) per person during the release event. A quick run on that math leads us to believe that these bottles will not last long, so make sure you are at the brewery early on February 16 to give yourself the best chance possible to secure your bottle(s) of Rarest Bean. Prost!

Brew Bus Brewing (Tampa, Florida) has announced that it will host a special release event for its Hazelnut Spread Imperial Milk Porter beginning at 4 p.m. on Monday, February 5.

With World Nutella Day just around the corner on February 5, that can only mean one thing for craft beer fans in Tampa: the annual release of Brew Bus Brewing’sHazelnut Spread Imperial Milk Porter. Set for its 2018 return, Hazelnut Spread is back this time around as an imperialized version that has “more hazelnuts, more chocolate, more vanilla and is creamier and more decadent than ever before.” Although this year’s version weighs in at a heavier 9.3% ABV, you can still expect Hazelnut Spread Imperial Milk Porter to be “just as great for dessert as it is for breakfast.”

The release of Hazelnut Spread Imperial Milk Porter will officially launch at the Brew Bus Brewing Terminal & Brewery (4101 N. Florida Avenue, Tampa, Florida) at 4 p.m. on February 5. This Limited Release offering will be available for purchase on draft and in 4-packs of 12 oz. cans during the event. The Eatery at Brew Bus will also be getting in on the party by featuring Nutella Ice Cream Beer Floats – “two generous scoops of homemade Nutella ice cream along with Hazelnut Spread Imperial Milk Porter” – for $8 each (while supplies last). Decadence will be the word of the day on February 5, and you are not going to want to miss out on “all this hazelnuty goodness.” Make it happen. Prost!

Founders Brewing Co. (Grand Rapids, Michigan) has announced that the 2018 release of KBS will officially begin with KBS Week events held in Grand Rapids and Detroit from March 5 – 10. National distribution of KBS will follow on March 30.

Known as one of the most sought-after barrel-aged craft beers in the country, KBS is an 11.8% ABV Imperial Stout “brewed with massive amounts of coffee and chocolate before aging in oak bourbon barrels in caves beneath Grand Rapids and at an offsite barrel-aging facility.” Always released in limited supply as a part of Founders Brewing Co.’s Barrel-Aged Series, the first glasses of 2018KBS will be poured in Grand Rapids and Detroit, Michigan during KBS Week 2018.

“When we started brewing KBS about 16 years ago, very few other breweries were doing anything like it,” said Co-Founder and President, Dave Engbers. “The first few packaged runs were difficult to get off of our hands as there wasn’t much interest in a bourbon barrel-aged coffee-chocolate imperial stout, which seems pretty crazy these days. It has since become a phenomenon and we are happy to celebrate its annual release with the people of Grand Rapids and now, for the first time ever, our loyal fans in Detroit. Here’s to continuing beloved traditions and starting new ones!”

KBS Week 2018 will officially kick off on March 5 and run through March 10 with tap events held in Grand Rapids and – for the first time ever – Detroit. The schedule for KBS Week 2018 is as follows:

KBS bottles will be first released through the following taproom pre-order system: “Bottles of KBS available for pickup in the [Founders Brewing Co.] Grand Rapids and Detroit taprooms will be released using a pre-ticketed reservation process via Ticketfly. Bottles can be reserved beginning on Friday, February 2, at 11 a.m. EST, and will be available for pickup March 6-11 from both taprooms.” **We will update this post with the Ticketfly links for Grand Rapids and Detroit reservations once they go live.**

Distribution of KBS will follow the taproom pre-order and begin with the state of Michigan on March 12. The remainder of Founders Brewing Co.’s 46 state distribution will see KBS on March 30. Once fully released, you can look for KBS to be available in 4-packs of 12 oz. bottles, 750ml bottles and on draft at select craft beer establishments located in Alabama, Florida and throughout the rest of Founders Brewing Co.’s distribution footprint. Like always, you should expect supplies to be limited and the possibility that retailers will set per person limits. With that said, we wish you nothing but good luck and happy hunting this KBS season. Prost!

Creature Comforts Brewing Co. (Athens, Georgia) has announced that it will hold a limited, brewery-only can release of Tritonia Gose with Mango, Orange & Lime beginning at 3 p.m. on Friday, January 19.

To take everyone’s mind off the cold for a bit, the brewers at Creature Comforts recently whipped up a limited batch of Tritonia Gose with Mango, Orange & Lime (4.5% ABV).Meant to mimic the flavors of a mango cocktail that you would run across at the beach, this incredibly refreshing version of Tritonia Gose features notes of tropical mango, coriander, lime zest, orange marmalade, and a “balancing salinity”.

Tritonia Gose with Mango, Orange & Lime will officially release at the brewery on Friday, January 19. Creature Comforts only produced 150 cases of this Limited Release, so guests will be limited to two 6-packs per person. This release event will also feature Tritonia Gose with Mango, Orange & Lime on draft for on-site consumption, tacos from Silver Queen, and live music from DJ Osmose. Due to the limited nature of this release, Tritonia Gose with Mango, Orange & Lime will not see distribution in cans. Prost!

On Saturday, September 30, Sixpoint Brewery (Brooklyn, New York) will release two Small Batch offerings, Toppen-ish IPA and Lil’ Raspy Raspberry Berliner Weiss. The twist from the Mad Scientists: these beers are only available at the brewery and can only be purchased through an exclusive Beta app.

The release of Toppen-ish IPA and Lil’ Raspy Raspberry Berliner Weiss marks the first-ever brewery release from Sixpoint Brewery, and there is no denying that they are going big for this occasion. There are a lot of moving parts to this release, but let’s cover the info on the beers first:

Toppen-ish IPA – “Toppen-ish is part of the Farm to Pint Series, a collaboration series with our hop farmer partners. For each beer in the series we source 100% of the hops from a single farm, to highlight individual terroir. This beer is named after Toppenish, Washington, where Cornerstone Ranches is located. Our buddy Graham Gamache hooked us up with awesome El Dorado and Centennial hops for this one.”

Lil’ Raspy Raspberry Berliner Weiss – “Then there’s Lil’ Raspy, a hot pink Berliner Weisse brewed with over 200 lbs of raspberries from the Willamette Valley in Oregon per 20 barrel batch. It’s a quenching beer with a big raspberry aroma, smooth body and tart finish. With each case purchase, fans will also receive a bottle of “Raspy Sauce” a raspberry-jalapeno sauce made to pour directly into the beer. Traditionally, the Berliner Weiss was served with a sweet raspberry or woodruff syrup to counteract the intense sourness. With Raspy sauce, we add in a spicy twist as well. (The sauce was created in conjunction with The Jam Stand, a Brooklyn-based company we’ve been working with since Mad Scientists #15, back in 2013.)“

Toppen-ish IPA and Lil’ Raspy cans will be available for pick-up at Sixpoint Brewery on September 30, but fans interested in obtaining these beers can begin purchasing them at noon on September 25 via Sixpoint’s Beta app. When it comes to Toppen-ish IPA and Lil’ Raspy, “there will be no walk-up sales at the brewery, as all sales of the inaugural canned beer release will take place through the app.” To ensure that you get all the proper information about how to obtain the app and purchase these beers, here are the step-by-step instructions provided by Sixpoint Brewery:

3. Wait for the beer release notification. The first beers will go on sale on Monday September 25th at noon.

4. Buy, buy, buy! (Quantities are limited so look out!)

5. Check back on the Sixpoint app for updates about your liquid. (Imagine how it will taste. So special.)

6. Come out to Red Hook, Brooklyn, pick up your beer at the brewery, and chill with the Sixpoint crew onSeptember 30th.

All of this may leave some of you asking, “Why an app?”. Well, here’s Shane C. Welch, Founder and Chief Visionary at Sixpoint, with the answer to that question:

“We can now look back and clearly see there were certain moments that altered the course of brewing forever — the discovery of yeast, the invention of pasteurization, the development of the automobile, etc. Flash forward to 2017, and Sixpoint has devised a way to directly link the brewery to its customers from the palm of their hand,” said Welch. “For generations, breweries and their supply chain were shrouded in mystery – the process and the entire ecosystem was kept out of the public eye, and the actual product was just something that appeared on the shelf or on tap alongside a marketing message. We’ve changed all of that with our mobile app, as we have directly linked our customers with our great suppliers, the formulation process, and the product itself. We’re the conduit.”

As you can tell from quote above, Sixpoint’s approach to this beer release is all about innovation and tailoring the experience specifically to you. Once you are signed up for the app, you will gain “access to a pipeline of new formulation and features, and anything you do now will be carried over to future versions of the Sixpoint App experience.” This could very well revolutionize and streamline the brewery beer release experience moving forward.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, what we do know is that Toppen-ish IPA and Lil’ Raspy Raspberry Berliner Weiss will not see distribution and the Sixpoint Beta app is your only gateway to these beers. If you will happen to be in the area of Sixpoint Brewery on September 30 and wish to get your hands on these Small Batch releases, just go ahead and download that app, make your purchases on September 25, and enjoy the experience of being at the cutting edge of craft beer innovation. Prost!